RANCHO SANTA FE — Trailblazing equestrian athlete Anna Buffini is riding high as she draws closer to achieving her Olympic dreams and making history in her sport.
Buffini, 29, of Rancho Santa Fe, competes in Europe this week for one of three coveted spots on the U.S. dressage team aboard mare Fiontini. She has already made history as the first Black rider to make the shortlist for the U.S. team, and if she advances, she will be the first Black equestrian athlete to represent the United States at the Olympics.
“It would be my biggest dream fulfilled since I was two years old,” Buffini said. “It’s all I think about all day; I wake up thinking about it, and I go to bed thinking about it.”
Buffini comes from Olympic stock as the daughter of a Team U.S. volleyball player and has been immersed in competition from a young age, competing in gymnastics before switching to riding at age 10.
Since then, she has been on a meteoric rise in the dressage circuit for several years, competing in two Dressage World Cup finals and as a member of the U.S. team at the 2022 Nations Cup. Dressage, sometimes known as horse dancing or horse ballet, involves extremely technical movements that are performed to appear seamless and graceful.

While Buffini has had Olympic ambitions for years, that goal became more of a reality in 2022 after purchasing 14-year-old World Champion mare Fiontini. The duo began competing together in January, making their international debut at the reopened Del Mar Horsepark, now known as HITS Del Mar, and earning two second-place Grand Prix wins.
Buffini said she and Fiontini had a very short amount of time to get to know each other while also competing for the shortlist, but the two were able to make a strong connection. Competing at the Horsepark, just a short drive from her home in Rancho Santa Fe, made all the difference.
“This was a very firehose season, where you got to learn a lot in a really short amount of time. It really takes a year to get to know a horse while competing with them, and I had only three months to compete, get to know her and make a shortlist. It was a big feat,” Buffini said. “She’s just so special in that she’s a generational talent, and I don’t know if I’ll ever ride a better horse than her, so I appreciate every moment.”
Buffini also credits renowned Olympian dressage rider Guenter Seidel, her trainer for nearly the past decade, with helping her chase her Olympic goals. Seidel said Buffini is a “super athlete” who has excelled at creating her own style.
“I knew she had the talent and the desire to do something great. She’s very dedicated. I knew she could go very far — I kind of imagine she could go wherever she wanted to go,” Seidel said. “The last year has been very intense working toward this goal.”


The final team selection will be announced by June 25 after riders compete in a series of competitions in Germany beginning this week. Buffini is the youngest person on this year’s shortlist and will compete against six other riders for a ticket to Paris, including five-time Olympian Steffen Peters, who also resides in the San Diego area.
Despite the high stakes and tough competition, Buffini said she is no stranger to high-pressure situations.
“I’m so looking forward to it. I’m really chomping at the bit, and I’ve trained for this for so long,” she said. “There’s nobody who wants it more than me.”
Buffini is used to being called a trailblazer and acknowledges that she had to push forward in her career without seeing equestrian athletes who looked like her (Black riders make up less than 1% of the United States Equestrian Federation membership.)
However, she said horses are equalizers — they judge people by their character, and equestrian events are the only area of the Olympics not separated by gender.
“Now that I’ve helped blaze a trail, I hope it inspires a lot of people who can also pursue it because it is for everyone,” she said.